Although law and drug enforcement agencies in the United States are skeptical about the spread of www.huffingtonpost.com/news/krokodil in America, in Russia, the threat of the potent, heroin-like drug is very real.

The three-and-a-half-minute video produced for Time, which has been content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2078355,00.html, tells the story of "Zhanna," a krokodil addict who has survived by learning to prepare the drug without using the impurities that give the drug its deadly reputation.

"I can survive and am able to maintain my habit because I am a good cook and people call me to cook," Zhanna says in the video. "Those who cooked when I first started using [krokodil], they've all died. After all the friends I have buried... nothing scares me anymore. You keep shooting up."

Krokodil is made from crushed codeine pills cooked with household chemicals. The impurities in the chemicals damage a user's veins when injected, causing green, scaly sores to develop. The flesh ultimately mortifies and rots off the bone.

Krokodil reached its peak in Russia in 2011, before new laws made over-the-counter codeine harder to get. Yet, the availability of codeine and the relative scarcity of heroin in that country makes krokodil a much cheaper alternative.

Many drug enforcement and medical experts think that the clandestine drug economy in the United States is stacked against krokodil.

"Relatively accessible and inexpensive alternatives, such as heroin, make krokodil production and use in the United States highly unlikely," Dr. Michael Lynch, medical director of the Pittsburgh Poison Center, told The Huffington Post in an email Thursday. "Krokodil use in Russia is likely related to the availability of non-prescription codeine in conjunction with the relative inaccessibility and cost of heroin and alternative opioids in that country."